June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Chile’s trade surplus exceeded analysts’ forecasts in May, climbing to the highest in 13 months, after imports took the biggest plunge in more than a decade.

The $956 million surplus follows a 42 percent tumble of imports from a year earlier to $2.9 billion, the central bank said today on its Web site. Exports shrank 33 percent to $3.9 billion. The result compared with the median forecast of a $600 million surplus by 13 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Chilean consumers are cutting back on purchases of goods from abroad on mounting concern that the country’s economic slump will deepen, triggering further job losses. Latin America’s fifth-biggest economy is contracting as prices for commodities such as copper, Chile’s leading export, fall amid the global slowdown. At the same time, a virus is ravaging the country’s salmon-farming industry.

“The recession in the Chilean economy explains the contraction of imports,” said Alfredo Coutino, director for Latin America at Moody’s Economy.com, Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “This increases the probability of at least one more rate cut. They could go as low as 0.75 percent.”

Rates Slashed

Chile’s central bank, which has already slashed interest rates by 7 percentage points since December, may keep cutting as the economy contracts, bank President Jose De Gregorio said today in Manila. Consumer prices fell in May, the fourth monthly decline this year.

Imports of durable goods shrank 58 percent in the first three weeks of last month from the same period a year ago, the central bank said. The trade surplus in May 2008 was $732 million.

The economy probably contracted 3.6 percent in May and it may shrink 3.5 percent in the second quarter after a 2.1 percent decline in gross domestic product in the first three months of the year, Coutino said.

The economy shrank 4.6 percent in April from a year earlier, the central bank said on June 5, the sixth straight decline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sebastian Boyd in Santiago at sboyd9@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 8, 2009 12:30 EDT